Espen Rekdel
In case you missed it, here are some of the most interesting stories this past week from around the photo-blogosphere.
Norwegian Jellyfish.
Norwegian photographer Espen Rekdel was featured in the Huffington Post this week for his breathtaking underwater pictures of Jellyfish. Like the shot seen above, these invertebrae, aptly named Hydramedusae, are found in the cold waters of the North European Fyords. Normally deep water creatures, the hydramedusae come to the surface to feed at night making Rekdel’s collection evcn more impressive.
Cold, underwater night photography isn’t something just any shutterbug could accomplish. The jellyfish, as small as a half-inch and as large as a few feet, are bioluminescent and create such otherworldly colors that any rare captured images often look artificially lit or photoshoped into something you’d see in a sci-fi movie. While lighting these shots must be incredibly difficult, the colors are naturally occurring. Rekdel used a Nikon SLR encased in waterproof gear and lit with specially made lighting rigs. Great work!
Dancing with the Leica S-2
Over on the Leica blog, the Leica internet team highlights the work of Markus Tedeskino. Tedeskino tests the not yet released new lenses for the medium format S system. His subject: A dancer leaping along a boardwalk in St. Peter Ording, Germany. With incredible precision and lens speed of the new line of central shutter lenses, Tedeskino captures the beauty, grace and form of the Ballerina. To see more about the lenses the photo shoot or see a video of Tedeskino at work visit Leica Blog.
Vietnam, War, and Photosynthesis
The Vietnam War has held a place in our art world as a dark and complicated topic. And the history of that period was indeed dark and complicated. However as the years roll on and we learn more about the true nature of Vietnam culture and its own amazing artists, we sometime scome across a story amazing or an artists so creative that it makes us stop and take notice.
That’s brings us to the Vietnamese photographer Bing Danh and his profile this week from the New York Times’ Lens Blog. Danh is the inventor of Chlorophyll printing process where he found a way to imprint his photos on pieces of nature like leaves or wild grass. The chemicals in nature provide a great natural canvass for these types of imprinting but Dahn found a process to make it work in a less temporary fashion. His images create a dreamlike narrative and the leaves themselves add a level of serenity juxtaposed to more serious photos. LENS describes this incredible process:
To create the images, Mr. Danh prints a large format negative of a selected image on a transparency, similar to those used with overhead projectors. He then places the transparency atop a fresh leaf, sandwiching it all between a pane of glass and solid backing. Mr. Danh puts the entire unit in direct sunlight, usually on his roof.
Then nature takes over.
The baking process can take a few hours or a few days. During that time, light bleaches some sections of the leaf and alters the natural pigments in others. The process is little more than trial and error, Mr. Danh admits — only one in every five prints is successful. The prints that he selects are then dipped and preserved in two- or three-inch-thick blocks of resin. In Mr. Danh’s galleries these resin pieces are often hung on exhibit wall.
Baseball Travel Photography
Baseball players travel a lot. From April till September (October for the good teams) the baseball season in 162 games. A team will play half of those on the road. This schedule while grueling for the athletes also affords players with a ton of down time. Players have often found interesting ways to fill their time. Some choose leisurely pursuits like golf or surveying the local night life. Some decide to share their good fortune by running charitable foundations.
This week in ESPN senior baseball writer Jim Caple’s column “Off Base”, he highlights a player finding a creative outlet befitting a profession as well traveled as baseball. It seems that Angels second baseman Howie Kendrick has been using his free time on the road sharpening his photography skills. He started by using his children as a subject, then branched out to more traditional travel photography themes. Check it out.
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